00:00In an interview with TV6 News, the new Land and Legal Affairs Minister gave some insight into some of his new responsibilities
00:07following what he says was a realignment of Cabinet portfolios by Prime Minister Kamlo Pesad-Besessa.
00:14The shift of the portfolios, regularization of squatters and the LSA now falls under the Ministry of Land and Legal Affairs.
00:22So it's not just reassigning portfolio, but also we aligned various state enterprises.
00:27So the EMBDCs with the Ministry of Land and Legal Affairs and also the Land Settlement Agency is here also.
00:34We sought to find out from Minister Saddam Hussein what could be expected in terms of a particular long-standing issue.
00:41Essentially, people occupying land who don't have that, let's say, authorization to be on that land.
00:47Right. So there is what we call the regularization of squatters, and so on.
00:54The law already is there to prescribe those boundaries.
00:57Those persons who will be entitled to their Certificates of Comfort and so on, those are already prescriptions in the law.
01:05We will be following what the law says when it comes to the regularization of squatters.
01:10We know squatting is an issue in this country, and that is something that we are going to look at,
01:15but it will be done within the four corners of the law and a compassionate measure in terms of how we deal with this very controversial issue of squatting.
01:25Often in politics, the word squatting is associated with the words voter padding.
01:29I think it's a stretch to say that we are creating an entire Ministry of Land and Legal Affairs for the purposes of voter padding.
01:38As you know, according to the law, the law says that someone must reside in the electoral district for a particular period of time
01:46before they are placed on the registration rule and so on.
01:49This Ministry is not about building houses or so on.
01:52This is about regularization of tenure, regularization of your land status in Trinidad and Tobago.
02:00TV6 News also sought a clarification about the land portfolio, which was removed from the Ministry of Agriculture.
02:07So what about the communication now between the Ministry that you are now in charge of and the new portfolio
02:13and, let's say, the Agriculture Ministry, because you still have the issue of agriculture dependent on the land,
02:20persons with agricultural land, etc., some of the same leases and titles that you spoke about.
02:26Yeah, and that's definitely something I'm going to look at. I'll tell you something.
02:30We also spoke with Minister Hussain in the context of the political landscape where the new cabinet changes are concerned.
02:38One opposition entity has already questioned whether this was an expression of a lack of confidence by the prime minister
02:45and some of the ministers in her cabinet and so on. How do you respond?
02:48That's nonsense by the opposition.
02:52They have failed in the last 10 years. They could not even distribute those carrying lands in the last 10 years.
02:57We did it in less than 100 days.
03:00So what you look at on examination of all the portfolio items is that you will see things have realigned in such a way to create that synergy.
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